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ParaNorman: Charming & Funny Animated Zombie Comedy

Published On:
13/09/2012

Norman is a strange little fellow. He can see dead people; a trait which hasn’t exactly endeared him to his classmates. When his homeless, estranged, similarly blighted uncle dies, it falls to him to stop a centuries-old witch’s curse from reanimating the corpses of the seven people who accused her of witchcraft and had her executed. Norman, aided by a group of mostly unwilling tagalongs, battles zombies, ghosts, his dad and the ignorant, trigger-happy townspeople to save his hometown.

ParaNorman is just plain fun. It riffs on horror films to create something that both mocks and celebrates a deep love for them. The combination of the purples and greens and the fonts used give off an awesome pulpy vibe; like those really kitschy old horror films - the zombies, for example, wouldn’t have been out of place in Michael Jackson’s Thriller video and the title sequence and end credits are a thing of beauty. The former sets the tone perfectly while the latter is almost as much fun as the film itself and definitely worth sticking around for.

Since ParaNorman comes from the same studio that gave us Coraline, we expected something wonderful and in general, it is. While both films are centred on misunderstood kids and are whimsical but creepy, Coraline is genuinely disturbing while ParaNorman goes for a funnier vibe, similar to the sense of humour of films such as Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. But while Coraline was a genuine masterpiece there’s something ever so slightly off about ParaNorman; something you probably wouldn’t even notice unless you - like us - went in with sky high expectations. The thing is that the characters occasionally look slightly wooden - as in expressionless not a tree by-product - especially during some of the secondary characters’ close ups. While this only affects very few shots, it is noticeable especially in comparison to the rest of the film which looks truly incredible.

The story is pleasantly surprising and definitely not as straightforward as you’d expect. It doesn’t have a clear cut villain and this ambiguity provides for some of the film’s most hilarious scenes. One minute the zombies are shuffling towards town, the next they’re frozen and cowering at the sight of the chaos that we call everyday life. The twists keep coming, both minor and major, right till the end and the film is both really funny and emotionally engaging - you’ll be surprised by how strongly you’ll be rooting for Norman.

It’s not only the visuals and story that are incredible though; the voice work is also pretty fantastic. Anna plays Norman’s blonde, guy-obsessed, cheerleader sister Courtney and makes her a source of constant laughs. Mintz-Plasse, better known as McLovin, plays against type as a burly bully with crap for brains named Alvin and is wonderful at it. The rest of the voice cast, which includes people like Casey Affleck and Leslie Mann, just rounds out the awesomeness. This is also one of those rare animated films where actors whose voices are quite recognisable, completely inhabit their characters and let their personas fade into the background.

Suffice it to say, ParaNorman is a ton of fun and definitely worth seeing. It would’ve been especially awesome around Halloween, though.

What can you say about the seemingly unstoppable force that is Nicolas Cage that hasn’t been said before? A magnet for the most troubled, muddled and just generally exasperating films to hit cinemas in the last five years, his latest work in USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage does nothing to change his fortunes.

Despite being based on one a true story that has all the makings of a war epic, the Mario Van Peebles-directed USS Indianapolis bleeds all and any gravitas and emotion out of its incredibly dramatic source material.

The story goes as thus: the eponymous US Navy cruiser delivered the first parts of the atomic bomb that would go on to devastate Hiroshima, before being torpedoed by the Japanese navy, leaving some 300 of the 1000-plus crewmen dead and the rest stranded in shark-infested waters. Said sharks, along with dehydration and salt water poisoning, leave just over 300 survivors to be rescued.

At the centre of the ensuing hubbub is Cage’s Captain McVay, who many, very unreasonably, blame for the death of the 700 or so victims – so you see, it’s a very complex story, but one that very quickly descend into and exercise on how not to make a war film.

The occasional laughable CGI aside, Cage is oddly sedate, bordering on placid, in his role – yes, the central character is possibly the flattest element of the film, while seasoned actors, Tom Sizemore and Thomas Jane, are given little to chew on in their respective roles.

While starting exactly as one would expect a war film to, the wreckage part of the film turns into cheap disaster movie, before turning into a courtroom drama in the final act. It’s a muddle of a film that fails to really drum to the beat of McVay’s potentially brilliant arc as a firm commander that eventually buckles under the unjust pressure he receives back at home.

Bad CGI, a mammoth two hour-plus running time and Nic Cage can be forgiven, but what’s at the heart of this film’s mess is the script. Jumping from event to event, plotline to plotline, at a whim, with Cage’s soft murmured speech used to pave over the transitions, USS Indianapolis’s pacing is that of a film hurrying to stuff as many ideas and threads as possible – expect that’s not the case. Van Peebles tries so hard to build the layers of an epic, when, actually, all he needed to do was tell this simple but stirring story as it is.

Returning to the world of wizards and all things magic, J.K Rowling’s screenwriting debut in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them has produced mixed results. Following the massive and the enduring success of the Harry Potter film franchise, the story is both magical and visually arresting. However, although definitely entertaining, the fun factor seems to have been squeezed out of the proceedings.

The plot follows ‘magizoologist’, Newt (Redmayne), who travels the world in search of magical animals in order to learn more about their powers. During his travels to New York City in 1926, Newt ends up losing his magical suitcase – a portable zoo of sorts which accidentally finds itself in the hands of an aspiring baker, Jacob Kowalski (Fogler) – setting off a chain of chaos.

The incident soon attracts the attention of Tina Goldstein (Waterston); a federal agent working for the Magical Congress of the United States of America who, after some persuading, reluctantly joins our hero on his quest along with her mind-reading sister, Queenie (Sudol).

Working from an original screenplay penned by J.K Rowling herself and directed by David Yates – filmmaker who helmed previous Harry Potter films – it would be easy to assume Fantastic Beasts to be nothing more than a blatant cash-grab which hopes to profit from long-time Harry Potter fans. However, although not as developed or as absorbing as one might have hoped, Fantastic Beasts proves to be a worthy addition to the fantasy arena which delivers an enchanting premise of eccentricity and magic.

Set seventy years before a boy named Harry Potter first walked the halls of Hogwarths, the film benefits from a degree of creative freedom to expand on its premise, introducing new stories, characters and an array of magical beasts along the way. However, there seems to be too much going on and the film struggles to keep up with the sheer amount of characters and sub-plots, failing to offer any substantial back stories or weight support them. The performances are relatively likable, with Redmayne embracing Newt’s love for magic with an gawky energy, though the rest of the cast – including Collin Farrell and Jon Voight - fail to make a similar impact.

Fantastic Beasts is an entertaining piece of cinema which will more than likely please die-hard fans that have been waiting to return to the world of wizards and magic. However, it’s not exactly what you might call an exciting movie or even a fully developed one; while it has sown the seeds for the films to come, as a standalone piece, it fails to really wow.